Emmaus, U. Milford Taking Sewer Saga To State

State officials will be asked to try to resolve the "continuing saga" between Upper Milford Township and the Emmaus over a sewage/storm-water problem in the border area of S. 2nd Street.

Borough Council and the township supervisors have agreed to ask the state Department of Environmental Resources to determine if malfunctioning septic systems or uncontrolled storm-water drainage is the main problem. State Sen. Guy Kratzer, R-16th, and state Rep. Don Snyder, R-134th, will also be asked to help settle the conflict, council was told at its Monday meeting.

Meanwhile, Jack Shields and his family are still "hostages" in the matter, as one township official has put it.

The family, which rents a township home near the border with Emmaus, is waiting for borough permission to connect the house to the borough sanitary sewer, which runs through their back yard. The township requires the hook-up before the property can be subdivided so that Shields can purchase the house his family has lived in for 18 years.

But Borough Council is not allowing any township properties to connect to the borough sewer system until the township takes what Council considers to be "positive" steps to solve the S. 2nd Street problem.

The "hostage" accusation made against the borough last month by township supervisors' chairman Thomas Unser peeved Council, which feels it has helped the township on all other sewer matters. Councilman Merrit Reimert has pointed out that council has permitted two large township housing developments planned next to the borough to use the Emmaus sewer system. In addition, a big restaurant and a large industry in the township are using the system, the councilman said.

Reimert said the township supervisors seem to forget that the township benefits from these uses of the borough sewer system. Reimert has said the township now owes the borough cooperation on S. 2nd Street.

Borough residents have complained for years that sewage from the septic systems of township homes farther up 2nd Street washes down with storm water running off South Mountain. The borough has offered to eliminate the septic systems by extending its sewer line to the township homes.

But the township and its sewer agent, the Lehigh County Authority, think the problem is not the septic systems but the uncontrolled storm water. The LCA said tests of the run-off one day last year showed no septic pollution. Also, the LCA claims that DER testing of the area years ago was inconclusive. The LCA has proposed that a storm water drainage system be installed in the neighborhood.

Nevertheless, the township supervisors have told the borough they will require the six township residents to spend thousands of dollars to connect their homes to the borough sanitary system if the borough has good evidence that the septic systems are malfunctioning. Council balked at the proposition, saying it didn't want to spend money to prove what it believes to be obvious.

Officials from both municipalities met recently in an effort to find a solution. "In the continuing saga of S. 2nd Street," Reimert told council this week, "the bottom line is we agreed to combine forces to bring in (Snyder and Kratzer) and have DER do testing to get conclusive proof" on the problem.

The LCA has asked the township for permission to study the cost of installing a storm water drain system in the area, Reimert reported this week. An earlier study by the township engineer pegged the cost of a storm water system at about $18,000. At that time, the township asked the borough to help pay for a storm water system because the township claimed that the storm water run-off was aggravated when the borough abandoned its reservoir surface water collection system on the mountain.